Butterfly

My second poem
********
After months of uncertainty
I run and hide,
away from the accusations, the expectations,
into the comforting dark.

Enmeshed in velvet night,
cocooned in a net of safety,
I wait and wait and wait for my time.
Your unrealistic demands
smother me
but I’m not ready yet and I must,
wait and wait and wait for my time.

Away from your staring eyes
I develop and become more,
but now I yearn to be free
from self-imposed "liberty"
so I beat, beat, beat against the walls,
feeling the need build inside me
to fly away from all the troubles,
cares and responsibilities.
I beat, beat and beat against the walls,
only to find that they’re not there
the fictional creation of a fearful mind.

And now I am free
flying away on a southerly breeze
my thoughts, my world
all far away behind me.
alone in the empty distance,
I can finally become me;
Away from the expectations,
the wants and needs of family.

I am becoming a fan of your work. I love your subject matter and the raw emotion that you capture in your poetry. Perhaps this could in part be because I feel as though I can relate to your subject matter to some degree. Your writing is very powerful. I thought this was yet another one of your great works.

My only complaint is the repetition of the word "and." Although I do kind of understand the reason for your repetition through out, I personally still don't know if it enhances the poem or whether if it in fact takes away from it. I would be interested to see what other people think about this. Perhaps an alternative would be something along the lines of, "I wait and wait. I wait for my time".

Either way I am still in awe of your work. It is one thing to have life experience and quite another to be able to write well, but to have both is just magic. And you obviously do!

Keep writing!

I liked this piece. I definitely felt for its message, and I think it was concise and clearly stated. Sometimes it was too obviously stated, such as in the lines: "Away from your staring eyes, / And the wants of society" ... I usually don't like when people talk about "society" in their poems; it's a hard topic to talk about because it's so broad.

But, overall, nicely done.

High praise, from both of you, for which I thank you. Bein a tentative writer of poetry--this is after all, only my second poem--this encouragement is very helpful and very welcome.

Thank you.

Cheers,
Jiggy

This is a good poem, particularly for only a second attempt at poetry (!!!). The only issue I have with it is as Blue Haze said, the repetition of "and". I think you should drop the and altogether - it makes the poem needlessly repetitive and irritates the reader by distracting their attention from the lovely rhythm you have going. If I were you, I'd alter the lines to "I beat, beat and beat" or even just "I beat, beat, beat". It has more immediacy and greater impact on the reader, IMHO. But of course it is your poem, so feel free to do what you wish with it. I love the image you have of a butterfly struggling to escape from an imaginary cocoon. I feel like that a lot
Kudos on a great piece. I'll have to keep an eye out for your work around here

EDIT: On rereading your poem after I posted this, I just had to say that I adore the first stanza. **steals** It's awesome. I have decided to do a full critique on this now. LOL.

After months of uncertainty
I run and hide -
away from the accusations, the expectations,
into the comforting dark.

Like I said. Love it. You do over-use the commas a bit though, and I would recommend dropping the 'capitals at the beginning of every line' thing. I've altered it thusly. Otherwise, brilliant. I love the rhythm, and it's the perfect place to begin a poem. It draws the reader in immediately.

Enmeshed in velvet night,
cocooned in a net of safety,
I wait and wait and wait for my time.
Your unrealistic demands urge me on,
but I’m not ready yet and I must
wait and wait and wait for my time.

Now, here the repetition of "wait and wait and wait for my time" is so perfectly placed I wouldnt change it. But the beat part has to change, because it detracts from the impact of the device and makes the poem much weaker than it would be otherwise. You know what I mean? Familiarity breeds contempt, after all. I've made a couple of minor changes to punctuation and capital letters, otherwise its a pretty neat stanza. One little thing, I'd change "urge me on" to something more appropriate - it sounds like the unrealistic demands are urging the poet to do what the poet is already doing, which, from the last two lines, is not the case. So, yeah, you might want to tweak that a bit.

Away from your staring eyes,
and the wants of society,
I develop and become more.
But now I yearn to be free,
so I beat and beat and beat against the walls,
feeling the need build inside me
to fly away from all the troubles,
from all the cares and responsibilities.
I beat and beat and beat against the walls
only to find that they’re not there,
[the] fictional creation of a fearful mind.

This entire stanza makes very little sense on closer analysis. If the poet is "away from...the wants of society" what is s/he yearning to be free from? What troubles and responsibilities does s/he have? You need to clarify the issue. Also, as before - less of the commas and the capitals!

And now I am free,
Flying away on a southerly breeze,
My thoughts, cares and duties,
All far away behind me.
Alone in the empty distance,
I can finally become me;
Away from the expectations,
The wants and needs of society.

I have to agree with Zany, the use of "society" in poems makes them sound very pretentious to my ears, although I'm sure it was unintentional in this case. It's just such a blanket term, you know? How about making it more personal? "the wants and needs of family" perhaps. Bring it closer to home. Tell us what you're REALLY trying to escape from.

Other than that, it was a great poem. I like the subtle way you rhymed sometimes yet didnt rhyme completely and all that. Like I said before, I'll keep an eye out for more of your work.

If the poet is "away from...the wants of society" what is s/he yearning to be free from?

first off, thanks for the comment Bubbles, I'll look into and tweak some things you mentioned. Here though, the idea was that s/he had gone into hiding, but now yearsn to be free from self-imposed prison and free from the fear that caused the hiding in the first place.

Again thanks, being my second poem, and a tentative writer of such thingd, encouragement is always welcome and helpful.

Cheers.

i thought it was pretty nice, great figurative languege and captures emotion well. i just think that you need to work on flow a bit.

Thanks a lot, all. I appreciate your comments, they are always welcome.

I very much agree with Blue Haze. KEEP writing. You have a lot of talent and potential. I'll ber sure to watch your work closely and crit it, because I think you are one of the more talented writers here. ^_~

Great job, jiggy! As others have stated, I'm becoming a big fan of your work too. You really have the talent for pounding the words on a page and capturing emotion. Your poems have a sense of helplessness to them, which a lot of people can relate to.

People have covered what I want to say in the crits, but I disagree about the wait and wait and wait part. First of all completely take out a wait. It's way too wordy and I think since the rest of your poem has a concise feel to it, it would sound better and would fit the tone of the poem. Just do "wait and wait." At least, that's what I would suggest.

Enmeshed in velvet night,
Cocooned in a net of safety

These were the best lines of the whole entire poem They created the "feel" of it brilliantly. Nice job. Keep refining your skills, and I'm sure you'll be recognized as one of the best writers on this site. Nice job!

Hmm, I was just going over my old stuff -- am very bored-- and noticed this again lol, so i finally made those tweaks and changes ... apart from the 'beat, beat, beat' and 'wait, wait, wait' thingo which I'm wary of touching.

Again though, thanks to all for commenting.